July 7, 2010

The prospect of cleaning up the old blog home is not a joyous one. Still, might as well be prepared since Scienceblogs.com is not looking too swell at the moment.

(Plus side is that mobile support for blogging is pretty good at WP now.)

I’m not feeling strongly about jumping ship..one way or the other. This is blogging though, things tend to happen quickly. So…I’m testing out backups. I think I have most of the posts and comments from the Sb era preserved. You know me- the blog commentary has formed a great fraction of the value of the DM blog. From my POV anyway.

July 7, 2010

Somewhere in the middle are blogs written by scientists at MRU’s who are mostly funded by some major single source (NIH, Big Pharm, … maybe even Pepsico???) but who, since they are either indy or pseudo, are different than a corporate sponsored blog.

I’m pretty sure I’m the blogger that takes the most heat for NIH funding conflict of interest, because of my topic domain. I’ll have to dredge up the links later because they are not overwhelmingly common.
The charge comes from people who don’t like my comments about the possible health risks of recreational drugs, most typically when I am talking about cannabis. It comes in two basic flavors.

July 7, 2010

Somewhere in the middle are blogs written by scientists at MRU’s who are mostly funded by some major single source (NIH, Big Pharm, … maybe even Pepsico???) but who, since they are either indy or pseudo, are different than a corporate sponsored blog.

I’m pretty sure I’m the blogger that takes the most heat for NIH funding conflict of interest, because of my topic domain. I’ll have to dredge up the links later because they are not overwhelmingly common.
The charge comes from people who don’t like my comments about the possible health risks of recreational drugs, most typically when I am talking about cannabis. It comes in two basic flavors.

July 7, 2010

The American Heart Associations recommendation to cut down on dietary sugar is all over the news. Discussion of this by Isis the Scientist triggered a comment from Callinectes :

Someone reading this may therefore assume diet drinks with Aspartame, Splenda, etc. may be okay because it’s 0 calories and added “sugar”. Can anyone comment authoritatively on this? The way I see it, it’s still just empty calories and not very good for you when consumed regularly on a weekly or (heaven forbid) daily basis.

One might argue that diet drinks still activate the “Hedonistic food pathways” in the brain (centers in the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens) that lead us to associate reward with food intake, causing us to take in more energy-dense food… That said, I don’t know of any multi-variate studies comparing risk between sugar drinks, diet drinks,… let’s be clear that Aspartame and Splenda are zero calorie sweeteners, meaning they would technically not contribute to the AHA’s recommended daily intake.

July 7, 2010

The American Heart Associations recommendation to cut down on dietary sugar is all over the news. Discussion of this by Isis the Scientist triggered a comment from Callinectes :

Someone reading this may therefore assume diet drinks with Aspartame, Splenda, etc. may be okay because it’s 0 calories and added “sugar”. Can anyone comment authoritatively on this? The way I see it, it’s still just empty calories and not very good for you when consumed regularly on a weekly or (heaven forbid) daily basis.

One might argue that diet drinks still activate the “Hedonistic food pathways” in the brain (centers in the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens) that lead us to associate reward with food intake, causing us to take in more energy-dense food… That said, I don’t know of any multi-variate studies comparing risk between sugar drinks, diet drinks,… let’s be clear that Aspartame and Splenda are zero calorie sweeteners, meaning they would technically not contribute to the AHA’s recommended daily intake.